


a fog from the past

by xerampelinae



Series: the hope suite [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, multiverse resonance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:43:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: “It is time, your highness” Antilles says, “my ladies.”Forget Luke, the fact that Antilles can say that with a straight face aboutJynis a Force-given miracle.





	a fog from the past

“Sometimes,” Leia says, eyes out among the stars, to the distant quadrant where wounded Alderaan spins, “I think I remember a past that never came to be. Where I was a prisoner and they destroyed Alderaan before me.”

Jyn pauses, breathes. “Sometimes I think I was never supposed to make it this far. That none of us were.”

“What have you seen?” Leia asks, gaze shifting to Jyn’s reflection.

“The beaches of Scarif as I never knew them,” Jyn says, finally. “The face of my mother’s killer. The firing of a planet-killer, and being on a planet as it was destroyed.”

More softly she says, “Cassian’s face as we hold each other and wait to die.”

Leia nods. “They turned my home to space dust. My family, our people--all gone. And sometimes I wake and forget that I still have them. It’s that real to me. I forget that the Empire has not taken them from me. That they haven’t slipped their fingers through the thoughts they could reach.”

Jyn thinks of the spacedust that now veils Alderaan. It will be generations before the remnants of the Death Star fade from the atmosphere, if ever it does. And when Leia returns home (it is rare these days, and clandestinely arranged for the sake of the Alliance) the skies will come alight with the strength of the Force as she walks through the atomized remains of the kyber crystal.

“I think, sometimes,” Leia says, “that it’s a mirror of truth. That it happened to another me in another place. And I remember because it was me, even if it was a different one.”

Jyn nods. “Alright,” she says finally. “I'll do it.”

Leia raises an eyebrow.

“I'll play your double,” Jyn says, feeling herself flush and hating it. “Just--don't laugh too much. Coruscant was a long time ago.”

Leia’s mouth spreads in a wide beam before she's darting close and leaving a quick peck on Jyn’s cheek.

“Thank you,” Leia says, face alight and for once looking as young as she is--two years younger than Jyn, two years from her majority. This is the paradox of Luke and Leia: one seeming younger and the other older, one demanding command and the other shadowing. The more time they spend together the more alike they are.

“You said you needed two doubles,” Jyn says with some curiosity, “who will be the other?”

The door hisses open. “Leia?” Luke calls out as he approaches, “Captain Antilles said you were looking for me.”

“Luke Skywalker,” Leia says, “You're my only hope.”

-

Luke, the bastard, moves more easily in the handmaidens’ robes Leia borrowed from her mother's household than Jyn could ever dream of. Leia moves like she was born in them, and maybe she was. With their hoods drawn up, veils down, and some careful layering, Luke and Leia are all but indistinguishable from one another. Meanwhile Jyn has to be rescued from the flowing robes several times.

“How do you do it?” Jyn finds herself whining to Chirrut.

“Very carefully,” he says goodnaturedly. “Here, let us start simply.”

-

Cassian is a bit flummoxed to see Jyn in the slip of a dress she’s been given to practice moving in. For a long moment he simply stares, as stunned as if he’d been knocked over the head with one of Jyn’s batons. Bodhi, on the other hand, tells her to spin in her dress--he’s right, it’s strangely delightful to feel the layers wind about her legs--and that dancing, not fighting, will be the best way to acclimate.

“Are you sure?” Jyn asks dubiously. 

Bodhi nods and Jyn concedes that Bodhi had been right about the spinning; this may be something separate from the rise of Darth Wampa.

-

It’s comforting, learning to move alongside Cassian. It’s rare that they come across a skill that neither of them has.

-

Captain Antilles escorts them in Leia’s ship, already wound in handmaidens’ layers. They pace Leia’s room--that is, Jyn does, focusing on the not-quite familiar movement of fabric--or look over Leia’s rock collection. Some of it is closer to the kyber crystal Jyn inherited from her mother than others.

“It is time, your highness” Antilles says, “my ladies.”

Forget Luke, the fact that Antilles can say that with a straight face about _Jyn_ is a Force-given miracle. Captain Antilles is perpetually disappointed that Jyn does not have the impossible ability of keeping Leia and Luke from trouble. Jyn, whom he knows sometimes shares a bed with her full crew (Leia had judged her until her own relocation to Hoth came through). It’s not that Jyn is averse to femininity, it’s that after years from her mother and Core planet events, performative femininity (even shy of Court wardrobes and manners) is its own flavor of terrifying.

Jyn feels better veiled. She thinks of her mother’s pendant swinging below the layers of cloth and prays that things will go well.

-

The assassins strike as anticipated: they are moving in a cluster, guided by Antilles. The handmaidens’ robes are a striking gray in the bright colors of the city. Unfortunately for the assassins, the one they seize as hostage is Jyn. After a long day of space travel confined to unfamiliar clothing and still more unfamiliar posturing, Jyn is eager for familiar ground. The assassin finds themself caught up in Jyn’s favorite cross-galactic chokehold. Meanwhile, the assassin’s compatriot falls under Leia and Luke’s concentrated blasterfire. Captain Antilles contributes to neither defensive or offensive measures before the threat is neutralized.

-

The next assassin strikes in the dark of the night, as they sleep in an open chamber in an undamaged wing of Alderaan’s palace. Jyn gets a vibroblade into the assassin’s back as they make their way to Luke’s narrow bed.

-

The next morning is the reason for their appearance: Leia’s public address to the people of Alderaan. Except it’s Luke in the elaborate dress.

“I think I’ve got the easy part,” he’d said, once they’d settled on the plan. Jyn thinks that she’s got the better end of the deal by being on the outside of the ornate robe. She doesn’t even really want to touch it, for fear of damaging it, or leaving a handprint, or creating an intergalactic incident due to a discreetly insulting fastening. Leia, meanwhile, assembles the outfit with the same ease with which she assembles a blaster. Jyn knows, as the person who taught Leia how to do so: Leia already knew how to shoot well enough when they met.

“Wait until you need to pee,” Leia says. Luke shrugs.

-

“How did that work?” Jyn asks, after. The speech was a roaring hit. Leia took down both assassins, after Jyn worked more frustration out with one. She is breathless, but pleasantly so. Only most of the assassins are dead, but all that are not are within custody. They are all confused. So is Jyn.

“All humanoids look alike,” Luke says, “or so I am told.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Fall Out Boy’s Champion, “I'm calling you from the future/To let you know we've made a mistake/And there's a fog from the past that's giving me, giving me such a headache.” Physically restraining myself from launching a thousand and one tales of shenanigans titled off FOB songs, especially the new stuff coming out.   
> My opinion of Leia and Jyn is that they would understand one another very well. This being a slightly gentler universe than canon, we get to see them get into shenanigans together. Almost like going to college together but still in a galaxy far, far away. Luke and Leia, on the other hand, both relax and resonate with the other.


End file.
